Two cases of histopathologically advanced (stage IV) early gastric cancer]

Various minimally invasive surgical techniques in some cases of early gastric cancer are becoming common practice. However, there are rare cases of advanced cancer with distant metastasis although the invasion of the gastric wall is limited to the mucosa and/or submucosa (defined as early gastric cancer according to UICC-TNM classification). We report two cases of early gastric cancer with distant metastasis (stage IV). Both tumors were defined as early cancer because they were confined to the submucosa. One was a type IIa early cancer, histologically classifiable as a signet ring cell carcinoma (according to the Japanese Classification of Gastric Carcinoma and UICC-TNM classification); the other was a surface spreading type IIb + IIc, classifiable as a signet ring cell carcinoma, too. Stage IV factors were ovarian metastasis (Krukenberg tumor) in the former and N3 in the latter case.